So over it!

People say when you have young children your household gets sick more often. And the more people you have in your household, the longer a sickness takes to enter and leave it. We have discovered this is so true! You’d think the last bit of spring and the first start of summer you wouldn’t get a cold that makes you feel like it’s fall or winter. But our household had two in the last 5 weeks that took us out of commission for 4.  

The last cold that hit us made Shilo the most sick. It was the first time we had to deal with high temperatures and really keep a close eye on it. Poor Shilo had a moderately high fever for just over three days. Thankfully it never got high enough that we had to go to the ER, but it was still pretty bad. Seeing and caring for a baby that is so sick is miserable. And I’m not referring to the constant crying and getting barely any sleep. It’s having to see this look in their eyes that says “help me! I don’t know what’s wrong. Why do I feel like this? How come I don’t feel better when you hold me, love on me or feed me?” It was so sad and depressing.

I am so thankful Shilo is getting back to being 100% healthy. She’s nearly there! She just has a cough and a very slight runny nose. Kayley is almost all the way better too. Her nose is looking much better. Please pray that all of us are 100% healthy for our trip that is coming up. Flying when congested is never fun, and I’m sure flying with children that are congested would be horrible not only for us but everyone else on the plane…

We hope we’ll be able to get back to a “normal” life too. Being sick has worn us out and we feel so disconnected from the world around us. I don’t think we’ve seen friends in over 6 weeks! We’re happy family doesn’t mind if you’re sick around them (especially when they have the same cold) so we were able to see my niece graduate from high school and hang out with my nephew home from war before he had to go back to base.

Thank you, God for getting us through these two colds! 

Happy graduation!

We love you, Derek!

Comparison

I took this picture of Shilo

Shilo 7 months

And remembered I had this one of Kayley

Kayley 5 months

I guess they both like sleeping the same way. It's hard to tell them apart and yet they're so different.

Mommy

It happened on Tuesday while at the zoo. Kayley had climbed up on a bench that was near the gorillas and I just finished parking the stroller with Shilo right next to it. The bench was high and Kayley wanted down so she could look for the gorillas in the exhibit. She turned to me and said “Mommy! Mommy, help!”

My heart melted.

It was the first time Kayley had called me “Mommy.” I think I nearly cried.

Oh to be a Mommy. It is so special!

Girls' Room

About two weeks ago we moved Shilo into Kayley’s room, now called “The Girls Room.” We were planning on doing it soon, but the actual day that it happened just kind of fell into place. It all started with scoring a $1 TV at Value Village on Purple Tag $1 day. Our TV died over two months ago and could not be saved and we made the decision to not spend money on a replacement and instead rearranged our furniture. Well, with the $1 TV we had to rearrange everything again, and I mean everything. The way things worked out is that each room had something change in it. We really liked how it all turned out and that includes Shilo’s bed being out of our room.

 The transition went a lot better than expected the first few nights especially since we didn’t really get to prep Kayley for the big change coming. But Kayley was excited to be a special big sister with the baby in her room, and she surprisingly sleeps through Shilo’s crying more than half the time. We prepped Kayley by telling her that mommy would have to come get the baby during the night to feed her, but that it was still night-night and that the baby would go back to sleep after she ate. Thankfully Kayley seemed to understand this concept quite well and for the times she has stirred or woken up completely I just have to say “Mama has to feed the baby. It’s still night-night time. Baby will come back to sleep when she’s done eating” and Kayley lays back down and goes back to sleep. There have been two occasions that she was upset I took the baby out of the room and stayed awake waiting for Shilo to come back before going back to bed.

It did take Shilo a while to get used to the room. As if on cue, 15-30 minutes after putting Shilo to bed she would cry to just make sure I was nearby. Thankfully she isn’t doing this as often anymore, but when she does I go give her her paci. We haven’t had her cry it out yet since we all happened to get sick one day after this all started and I wanted both the girls to get good sleep. The whole sick thing did throw a bit of a wrench into the whole adjustment, especially for nap time…

Night time goes a little like this:

7:50pm Girls get ready for bed, followed by family prayer time.

8:10pm Kayley’s special book time with daddy followed by him singing 3 songs before putting her in her crib (I’m out in the other room with Shilo playing)

9:45pm Shilo nurses

10:10pm Shilo goes to bed

4:00am Shilo wakes up to eat

4:30am Shilo back to bed

8:30am Girls wake up and get ready for the day

Nap time has taken longer to work out. Before the cold struck our family, the girls were actually synced for their napping schedule. But the cold threw that off completely. I actually had Shilo sleep in our bed a few times, surrounded by pillows so she wouldn’t roll off just so both girls would get at least some sleep without waking each other up. It has taken 2 weeks for the cold to hit our family and leave. We are finally getting back to our “normal” nap time schedule where Kayley’s finishes her lunch and is then put down for nap time. I then nurse Shilo and then put her down about 20 minutes later. They tend to have about 2hrs of overlap sleeping before Shilo wakes up to play. So I go get Shilo and we have play time for about an hour, then I nurse her and then we go get Kayley who typically has been having quiet time for the last bit.

We’re still adjusting to the girls being in one room, and I think they are too. But oh my goodness it nice to have our room to ourselves again! We can have the light on when getting ready for bed, and talk in normal voices! I’m glad we’ve had such a great experiences. I really didn’t think it would go this well. Now Shilo just has to work on sleeping longer at night and we’ll all be getting more sleep.